Frequently Asked Questions

The StormForge Platform uses patent-pending machine learning to optimize Kubernetes resource efficiency at scale. In pre-production, StormForge uses rapid experimentation combined with load testing to optimize for every possible scenario and provides in-depth application analysis and insights to drive key architectural improvements. In production, StormForge maximizes the value of your existing observability data to reduce resource usage and cost while still meeting SLAs. StormForge accelerates your competitive advantage by allowing developers to focus on innovating, not tuning Kubernetes.

1. StormForge Optimize Live – Turn observability into actionability

• Observation-based optimization in prod
• Leverages observability data already being collected
• Machine learning recommends CPU and memory to improve efficiency
• Recommendations can be automatically implemented or manually approved
• Simple configuration and fast time-to-value

2. StormForge Optimize Pro – Proactive Optimization with deep application insights

• Experimentation-based optimization in pre-prod
• Uses load testing to simulate a range of scenarios
• ML optimizes for any goal by tuning any parameter
• Highlights trade-offs to enable smart business decisions
• Deep application insights to drive architectural improvements

3. Performance Test – Scalable, easy-to-use-Kubernetes load testing

• Create load tests in minutes with SaaS simplicity
• Scale to hundreds of thousands of requests per second for millions of concurrent users
• Simulate traffic from any geographic region
• Built for automation into CI/CD workflow
• Open workload model for accurate and real-world scenarios

Part of the StormForge Platform, StormForge Optimize Live uses machine learning to analyze observability data and make recommendations on container CPU and memory settings in order to reduce resource usage while still ensuring application performance.

StormForge Optimize Live ingests data from your existing observability tools. Our machine learning analyzes historical usage and trends and then makes recommendations for updated CPU and memory settings, at whatever frequency you specify. Updates can be configured for manual or automatic approval. If you choose manual approval, you can review the recommendation in detail before approving. If you choose automatic approval, the recommendation is automatically patched to the deployment in production. Optimize Live continues to watch your environment and repeat the process, so you can put your optimization on autopilot.

Part of the StormForge Platform, StormForge Optimize Pro works in a non-production environment using a process of automated, rapid experimentation to simulate a wide variety of scenarios. Optimize Pro uses patent-pending machine learning to analyze data and recommend the optimal configuration prior to deployment.

StormForge Optimize Pro uses a process of rapid experimentation in a non-production environment. Load is placed on the system using a performance test, which can be created using StormForge Performance Testing or with a third-party tool. StormForge machine learning analyzes the outcomes of the load test based on your goals (e.g. performance and cost), then recommends a new configuration to try. After running several trials, StormForge machine learning homes in on the configuration that will result in the optimal outcomes prior to deploying your application.

Software is not static, and today software companies have more releases, more often. Developers are using StormForge to make sure they’re managing software appropriately and that it’s running with optimal efficiency without having to spend time manually tuning applications. What does that mean from a value standpoint? It means they don’t have to choose between cost and performance or other metrics. Developers can unlock a whole new world by gaining a much broader view of their environment from a resource management standpoint and make more intelligent decisions.

The StormForge platform is built in a way that is meant to be integrated and part of the DevOps toolchain. That means that it is hardened from a cloud-native perspective and vertically integrated so that developers can integrate quickly to get up and running fast and realize value.

StormForge is the only solution that closes the loop between pre-production and production with both experimentation-based and observation-based optimization in a single platform. Our patent-pending Machine Learning engine allows us to provide a level of sophistication that goes above and beyond the basic statistical modeling used by other solutions. And, unlike observability and APM tools, which are important for seeing what’s happening in production, StormForge Optimize Live is proactive and enables you to automate the change or fix that comes from observing data. In that way, it’s the perfect partnership – marrying observability and APM tools and StormForge ML-driven optimization, and a big differentiation for StormForge.

StormForge started as a machine learning lab. We were a Docker Swarm shop for the first few years, and we were trying to solve our own lift-and-shift challenges from Docker Swarm to Kubernetes. When our team of data scientists and engineers were performing this lift-and-shift, we realized how painful tuning is for developers.

We knew we weren’t alone, and immediately went out and talked to as many developers as we could to see if they were experiencing some of the same problems. When you look at how many workloads are moving over to Kubernetes, it’s obviously a breakneck pace. That was really the start of StormForge – we are born out of a real business problem that stalls organizational momentum. So, we dedicated ourselves to solving the problem in a way that makes life easier for developers and gives businesses the intelligence and insight they need to make better resource decisions as they move to Kubernetes.

Getting started with StormForge is as easy as one-two-three. Talk to one of our Kubernetes experts, take it for a test drive, and start achieving your goals of increasing developer velocity, improving application performance and reducing cloud costs.

Application performance testing is the process of assessing the performance, stability, scalability, reliability, and resource usage of applications under a particular workload. By defining test scenarios (test cases) and using user-defined data sources real-world workload can be generated and the application tested against this workload. The metrics gathered during test runs are being used to benchmark the current status of an application to its target status as it might have been defined as part of an SLA. If performance testing reveals that an application is not performing at the desired level, the next task is using performance data and other sources of information to locate and diagnose the problems, and take the necessary actions to resolve it. The overarching goal of performance testing, therefore, is not only to make an application fast but enable an organization to understand why the application is behaving as it is and what limitations it has.

Companies are looking to automate, scale, do fast deployments and lower the costs of applications. To determine whether or not organizations are actually gaining those potential benefits, they need to test application performance. By doing so, they get quantitative answers to key performance questions, such as the following: What is the actual speed, scalability, and stability of an application versus expectations? How does the application perform as the number of concurrent users rapidly increases or decreases? Is the application’s resource provisioning optimal?

With the StormForge Platform, teams can take advantage of Performance Testing as a Service (PTaaS). The platform enables them to create load tests in just minutes, and scale tests from tens to hundreds of thousands of requests per second. The StormForge Platform also enables tests that replicate the activity of millions of concurrent users. The Platform’s intuitive, user-friendly user interface allows teams to easily create repeatable automated load tests to incorporate into their CI/CD workflows.

At this time, any application reachable via HTTP can be tested with StormForge Performance. In some cases, closed systems (not reachable over the internet) can also be tested. Feel free to discuss your specific needs with us by contacting us.

The focus of performance testing changes over a project’s lifetime as different aspects of a system need to be evaluated. StormForge supports the following testing types: load, smoke, endurance (soak), throttle, stress, peak, and scalability.

Learn more about the different types of performance tests here.

The maximum load generated for each test depends on the plan an organization purchased and defined in each test case. With the highest plans, any kind of real-world load can be generated.

Of course. You can find the details in our documentation.

It’s pretty easy. Tests can be automated and scheduled using either the CLI in combination with your CI tooling or simply use the scheduling feature in the WebUI.

Yes. Each test case is highly configurable to simulate real-world user behavior observed by e.g. an organization’s marketing team (user journey, time-on-page, etc.). One can upload their own data sources and define data sources to be used in a test case.

Yes. Load can be generated from any inhabited continent to simulate load from clients in these regions.

Yes. In more and more cases, organizations are launching their mobile apps in regions with limited or varying mobile coverage. With Throttle testing in StormForge Performance, organizations can make sure to serve all of their customers and launch in new markets with confidence.

Sure thing. To distinguish between real user traffic and StormForge traffic to, for example, a production system, it is either possible to set a custom HTTP header or filter for the standard headers StormForge sends. In addition, one can also use basic auth to allow load tests to access your test environments.

While StormForge Performance Testing is included as part of the StormForge platform along with application optimization, customers can purchase Performance Testing as a standalone solution. Please contact us for details.

StormForge Performance Testing fits in the CI/CD pipeline right after a change is deployed to an integration or testing environment. Performance testing should happen, in general, at the same time as integration and acceptance testing.

If you’ve purchased the StormForge platform including both Application Optimization and Performance Testing, we include enough performance testing capacity to meet the needs of almost any optimization scenario. If you do run into limitations, please contact us to discuss options for increasing your load testing capacity.

If you’ve purchased StormForge Performance Testing on its own, the number of users, collaborators, test cases, test data, and test runs depend on which plan you have purchased. Contact us for more details on what is included with each plan.